The Bus Diaries

Forget Ché and his romantic, free-sprited motorcycle travel. The standard way to get around South America is the autobus, and allow me to share the Ecuadorian bus experience (I hear I have much better experiences ahead of me in other countries, which is great for my bladder, stomach, and mind).

Taking the bus is a great way to really SEE the country and its amazing and diverse landscapes packed into such a small country. I have only been in the mountains (missing out so far on the coast and the jungle, and the Galapagos Islands, if anyone wants to donate money to get me there please go to http://www.deannsfund.org/), but even the Andes have remarkable scenery. So buses let you experience some of this, at a very cheap price (roughly a dollar an hour of travel). But the deal doesn´t just stop there. Let´s examine the anatomy of a bus ride in Ecuador.

The essential elements of an Ecuadorian bus ride:

-- Large bus, sometimes covered in pollution and dirt so you can barely see the name of the coopertiva. If your bus breaks down, it is replaced with a similar one, maybe even a less stable-looking one just to make you feel better.

-- A driver and porter, both of potentially volatile personality. The assistant is keenly adept with memory (remembering people to know who to charge and when) as well as physical conditioning (to literally jump off and on the running bus, and throw heavy pieces of luggage around like they contain little of value).

-- Potholes and ditches and piles of dirt in the road, if you can even call it a road at some points.

-- The road: often narrow, always winding around the mighty mountains, somehow shared with other buses, cars, tucks, people walking, and animals. Buses like to pass one another up, which is fabulous when the lane is barely considered to be two way and there are numerous curves.

Optional: memorials with crosses and flowers of where people have died.

-- Plastic bags available on the bus, allegedly for trash, but also for passenger vomit I have found.

-- Loud music or a movie (on high volume, of course), likely to involve violence, terrorism, and either Steven Segal or Sylvester Stallone.

-- Some sort of religious figure decal OR American sports team decal on the interior of the bus.

-- Passengers loaded to the max, and beyond. Ecuadorians seem perfectly content to stand in the aisles with large bags of food, goods, or who knows what else (given how many times I have heard animals noises coming from a large nondescript bag held by people walking in the street). Even the elderly are adept at jumping on the bus with a 20 pound bag of whoknowswhat and screaming when they want to get off, when the bus driver will slow down while they dive off. And people have no problem using other passengers as a stabilization while moving throughout the bus - my head apparently makes a great post.

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Add these elements and you get a little bit of nausea and a lot of life reflection (for fear it may end soon) on the stuffy bus going high speeds over winding, narrow, high roads of the Andes. And this can be yours for only about $1 per hour of enjoyment. Bien viaje!

http://picasaweb.google.com/dcromp/EcuadorByBus